Healing Arts Report

Practices for an Evolving Life

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They Don't Tell You How

“You need to love yourself more.” “You shouldn’t feel that way.” “Always put other people first. Don’t be selfish.” The one thing that is missing from all this good advice is telling you HOW to do it. We introduce you to practical tools using your own character traits to support you in creating practical answers to those questions. Read more here.

Books

Two memoirs tell about times of extreme personal growth in the author’s life. Sunny Side Up is a window into the early 70s when certain young adults were searching for a way to head off society’s path bent on materialism. The Transparent Feather tells of a dying author passing the torch of writing to her new friend cum student.

Blog

Stuff And Energy

Yesterday I was telling a friend that in my sporadic attempts to clear out the accumulating “stuff” that George Carlin described so well, I gave away a really cute decorative stuffed snowman. I was so proud of myself for sending an item I was fond of to new living quarters that I actually patted myself on the back when telling people about it.

Within the week, friends visited, bringing along Christmas presents, one of which was a humongous cookie jar—in the shape of a very cute snowman! Was it the universe letting me know I still had not really learned to “let go?” Or, as my husband said, “Perhaps the universe feels we need a certain amount of resident snowmen in our house at all times.”

Some stuff makes me laugh every time i look at it.

Thinking about this reminded me of a trip I made across the United States about five years ago. What grabbed me as i visited old friends was seeing the amount of stuff we all had. Something about it saddened me and I wasn’t sure why. Another friend, Karen, suggested, “I’ll bet the sadness you felt was the sense of longing people had for something more.”

boB, who arrived by flying cup is protected by Gorpl.

I so enjoyed RJ Ananta Palmer’s comment on the Energy Medicine Exchange FaceBook page that I asked his permission to quote him in this posting.

Here is what RJ wrote:

ON UNDERSTANDING ENERGY IN DAILY LIFE.

Recall if you please an ordinary day of window-shopping. Then remember that special something that caught your attention – or remember this as a probably common occurrence in childhood if that helps to make it real. You certainly felt the energy then – it surged through your body, building to a crescendo of desire. It may have nearly broken your heart if you could not possess it. Do you remember what that felt like – a fire in every nerve? Perhaps you were lucky enough to obtain it and cherish it for a while. But remember how easily you lost interest in the object of your desire. “It is never the thing we desire but the feeling,” wrote Edward L. Kramer. ….Well, in the spiritual path this is what we learn to do… to recognize and tune into the energy of a thing, much like we tune into the taste of food on a menu as we decide what will best meet the needs of palate and nutrition. It hopefully dawns on us that what we feed on is energy itself, whether if be from an apple tree soaking up the energy of the Sun, or a dear friend providing loving attention, or the new car and its promise of speed, or economy, or status.

When I asked RJ what he knew about Edward L. Kramer, he said Kramer was a new thought teacher. “The quote is from his book called Pathways To Power: Synchromantics the Science of Life-Balance, published in the 1950’s. He is probably best known as the inventor of the Thank You Gram, a post card that one could send just to acknowledge and send appreciation to another for a kindness observed.” RJ summarized: “Our material abundance reflects a hunger, not for things but for a special energy.”

I’m setting myself the challenge to find practices to help free me from material attractions and discover the life energy I’m really craving.

PRACTICE. I’ve noticed that when I’m working on something that excites my interest, other unrelated dissatisfactions tend to disappear. Take note of something that’s been annoying you, set yourself a project you’ve been meaning to do and then do it. Observe what happens to your feelings regarding both situations.

Contact. I can help you design such a project especially if it seems a little too grand. We’ll figure out together how to trim it to size and make it possible to get started and finished.

Discussion

3 Responses to “Stuff And Energy”

After reading this newsletter, a flea market or yard sale came to mind. People get excited about finding the bargain of the year. And, every weekend they strive to find it. Think about what could be accomplished if that energy transferred to a “wuz gonna” list. We might surprise ourselves.

In her book “Off The Map”, Chellis Glendinning hypothesizes that the excitement of finding a bargain or just the right whatever has its roots in a hunting/gathering economy. She compares her reaction to stumbling on a field of wild edible mushrooms to shopping and finding bargains.

Well, here’s the part about that comparison that doesn’t work for me. The excitement of finding edibles is a matter of life and death with the bonus of it being delicious. The thrill needn’t last except in terms of now having experienced the energy inherent to surviving well and using that as a model for future survival. Things, not so much.